Increasingly, computing resources are becoming more networked. Resources such as processors and memory stores were previously provided in a single hardware installation, such as the personal computer (“PC”). Traditionally, computing networks were used to link such hardware instantiations together.
Over time, computing networks have evolved so that disparate parts of the computing device may be connected by what was traditionally considered as a network. For example, it is no longer necessary for the processor and nonvolatile memory to be connected via a computing bus. In the modern computing environment, the capacity and speed of networks has increased to the point where transport and switching speeds previously only attainable at the relatively small scale of a computing bus can now be achieved over much larger distances using a network.
One of the commercial consequences of this has been the advent of “cloud computing”. The central tenant of “cloud computing” is that computing resources can be accessed via a network and that the consumer is able to pay for the quantity of computing resources they require, as needed. The primary advantage to the consumer is that they do not need to pay for resources which they are not using.
However, by taking advantage of economies of scale, the providers of these cloud computing resources (“cloud”) may be required to deploy different resources at disparate locations. Therefore, it can be difficult to guarantee or predict the precise characteristics of the resources which are provided under all circumstances.